“You’d better make the most of the opportunity,” she was startled to hear herself say. The old Elspeth would never have found the nerve to encourage a young man’s attentions. It seemed changing her hair and clothes had changed a few other things as well.
And about time, too.
“Ye don’t have to ask twice, my bonny.” With a husky laugh, he tilted her face up and brushed his lips across hers.
Her first kiss. And from a beautiful man like Brody. How utterly…marvelous. A tingling thrill rippled through her, tightening her skin and making her toes curl in their blue satin slippers. She twined her arms around his neck and tangled her fingers in the silky hair at the base of his skull.
Another touch of his lips drew a yearning whimper from her, and she stretched up to get closer. This time, he lingered over the kiss, flicking his tongue along the seam of her lips.
She was trembling, and her knees felt likely to collapse. Had she said she was cold? She doubted she’d ever be cold again. Delicious heat licked along her veins and made her feel strange and wonderful. And powerful.
Brody released her face and lashed his arms around her, dragging her into his body. The kiss became more intent, and instinctively she parted her lips, seeking more of his taste. He gave a deep growl of satisfaction, and his tongue slipped through to dance against hers.
How bizarre. Elspeth made a muffled protest and stiffened, while the waves of tremulous pleasure washing through her turned to throbbing need.
He raised his head, and when he spoke, his breath was warm on her face. She caught the smoky honey tinge of Fergus’s whisky, the same flavor she’d tasted on Brody’s lips. “This is torture. I want to keep ye here forever.”
She’d started to yearn up toward him again, before she realized what he’d said.
“I can’t stay.” She didn’t try to hide her regret.
“I know.” He sounded no happier than she did. “But there’s always tomorrow.”
Distantly she heard the clock in the hall strike two, followed a few seconds later by the delicate tinkle of the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece in this room. “Today.”
“Even better.” The thicker brogue told her he was smiling. “But I still dinnae want to let ye go.”
Despite her innocence, despite his expressed good intentions, she knew that with one word’s encouragement, he’d have her flat on her back on the chaise longue. Difficult as it was to remember when she quivered in his arms, she’d kissed Brody as an experiment, not as part of a life-changing commitment.
“You must.” Daringly she rose on her toes and kissed him briefly on the lips. Then she slid her arms free and turned to crack open the door.
“Is it safe for us to go?” he murmured, trailing swift kisses along her nape. Lightning bolts of sensation sizzled through her, and her breath caught on a stifled moan. Who knew her neck was such a sensitive area?
“Yes…” She paused, then pushed the door forward until only a sliver of light shone through. “No.”
“Are ye truly at peace with your father’s choice, mo chridhe?” Fergus’s deep voice was clearly audible from the hall outside.
“Si, certo,” Marina said. She and her husband were standing at the base of the staircase, by the sound of it. “It was a surprise, of course. Giulia seems a good woman, and there’s no doubt that they love one another.”
“Aye, he’s smitten, all right. But ye and Ugolino were alone together as a family for a long time. This woman is stepping into your mother’s place.”
“Caro, you’re sweet to worry about me.”
“Of course I worry about you, ye mutton-headed lassie. I love you.”
“And I love you, Mackinnon.”
There was a pause, when Elspeth guessed that the couple kissed. It was a private moment. She shifted uncomfortably and felt Brody’s arm slide around her waist. He bent to nibble another line of kisses across the back of her neck, and she bit back a gasp as a wealth of nerve-endings stirred into charged life. Her nipples hardened against the soft lawn of her shift, and the secret places in her body softened and turned liquid.
“Stop it,” she said on a breath.
As she should have expected, that provoked another kiss, this time under her hairline. Her knees wobbled, and she sagged, grateful that his powerful arm held her upright. It would be humiliating to crumple into a heap of feminine enjoyment at his feet.
“He could have broken the news better,” Fergus said with a hint of grimness.
“Knowing Papa, he hoped to avoid a scene by presenting us with a fait accompli. Anyway, he did give me some warning. Before we married, he told me that he was going back to Florence to find a nice, comfortable widow. I’d been too selfish to see that he was lonely, traveling around with just me for company.”
“Och, you have such a generous heart, Marina. You put me to shame.”